Philip Kennicott has won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for criticism. He is the art and architecture critic for The Washington Post. A versatile writer with years of experience in producing considered criticism, as well as investigative journalism, Kennicott joined the Post in August of 1999.

Brookfield native Ayad Akhtar has won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for his play 'Disgraced.'

In his review of a New York production of the play, New York Times critic Charles Isherwood called "Disgraced" "a continuously engaging, vitally engaged play about thorny questions of identity and religion in the contemporary world, with an accent on the incendiary topic of how radical Islam and the terrorism it inspires have affected the public discourse." | April 15, 2013»Read Full Blog Post

Using "Porgy and Bess" to make a point about "Sweeney Todd," Stephen Sondheim has written that when it "was performed on Broadway it was a musical; when it was performed at Glyndebourne and Covent Garden, it was an opera."

What does one call this masterpiece about an insanely murderous barber and his wacky sidekick when it's performed in the intimate confines of Carte Blanche Studios' Walker's Point home? That can be as hard to pin down as the secret recipe to Mrs. Lovett's infamous pies. | April 15, 2013»Read Full Article

When Dwight Yoakam made his way to Nashville in the late 1970s, he was at a loss. Where was the rich honky-tonk soul of Buck Owens? Where were the bare emotions of Merle Haggard?

So the Kentucky native set west for Los Angeles, where his hillbilly rebellion and devotion to the Bakersfield sound found a strange bedfellow in the burgeoning punk rock scene. Nearly three decades after releasing his first album, Yoakam is still pushing back on the mores of modern mainstream country music, and last year's eclectic, neo-traditional "3 Pears" album topped the charts and critics' "best-of" lists. | April 15, 2013»Read Full Article(2)

Artist Niki Johnson, who recently created a woven portrait of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI using thousands of colorful condoms, appeared on CNN's "Faces of Faith" segment on Sunday morning (see video below).

Johnson talked about the message of her piece, which has made headlines around the world. It was inspired by the former pope's controversial comments about the use of condoms in 2009. | April 15, 2013»Read Full Blog Post

The thin line between news and entertainment got a little thinner Friday when WITI-TV (Channel 6) reporter Angelica Duria was roped into performing a promotional-type dance video while on assignment at a fire scene in West Allis where three children died.

The video featured Duria and the giddy “Wake Up News” team - anchors Kim Murphy and Shawn Patrick, reporter Laura Langemo and behind-the-scenes personnel - all doing a twitchy dance called the Dougie, based on a hip-hop song. | April 15, 2013»Read Full Blog Post(176)

The Violent Femmes, featuring (from left) Victor DeLorenzo, Brian Ritchie and Gordon Gano, played its first set since 2007 at the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival Saturday. The Milwaukee band will play a homecoming show at Summerfest June 26. Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images| April 15, 2013»Read Full Blog Post(2)